Woman’s Language and Discourses in Ulysses―Focussed on “Penelope”
Jeong Sook Ahn
In the last episode of Ulysses, “Penelope,” Joyce comes back home finishing his odyssey of writing. He returns from a long journey of experiments in which he subverts all kinds of conventions of narrative. Admitting prestige neither of the narrator nor of the author, Joyce claims there is no absolute consciousness that articulates the narrative.It might be suspected that Joyce tries to give the sense of ending to the story by returning to a single credible narrator, Molly. Apart from the problem of representation, the writer seems to find out the possibility of subversion in woman’s voice. Woman’s language has characteristics like repetition, cycle, rhythm which stem from her biological experience. Molly’s language lacks correct structure, punctuation, and logic, in short, conventions of language, namely laws of the father. It can be regarded as an example of woman’s language, which gives us jouissance as a semiotic text defined by Kristeva. Molly weaves/unweaves a variety of social discourses that result from the symbolic system. Readers sensitized to the interplay of the competing voices will emphasize the dialogues between the narrator and the protagonist, the protagonist and the other characters, the writer and the protagonist. The voices are struggling to get the privilege in the narrative. Voices are related to the social value systems, that is, ideologies. Each ideology, however, registers as a language that is to be subverted by Molly’s language.
Woman’s Language and Discourses in Ulysses―Focussed on “Penelope”
Jeong Sook Ahn
In the last episode of Ulysses, “Penelope,” Joyce comes back home finishing his odyssey of writing. He returns from a long journey of experiments in which he subverts all kinds of conventions of narrative. Admitting prestige neither of the narrator nor of the author, Joyce claims there is no absolute consciousness that articulates the narrative.It might be suspected that Joyce tries to give the sense of ending to the story by returning to a single credible narrator, Molly. Apart from the problem of representation, the writer seems to find out the possibility of subversion in woman’s voice. Woman’s language has characteristics like repetition, cycle, rhythm which stem from her biological experience. Molly’s language lacks correct structure, punctuation, and logic, in short, conventions of language, namely laws of the father. It can be regarded as an example of woman’s language, which gives us jouissance as a semiotic text defined by Kristeva. Molly weaves/unweaves a variety of social discourses that result from the symbolic system. Readers sensitized to the interplay of the competing voices will emphasize the dialogues between the narrator and the protagonist, the protagonist and the other characters, the writer and the protagonist. The voices are struggling to get the privilege in the narrative. Voices are related to the social value systems, that is, ideologies. Each ideology, however, registers as a language that is to be subverted by Molly’s language.